By Shaine Bennett, October 17 2014
Planet Auran is changing.
For a long time, Planet Auran has been the center of the Trainz experience, loosely tying together and connecting different services that exist under the Trainz brand. From the forums to the DLS and more, Planet Auran handles your user credentials and makes sure you're recognised and properly attributed. From forum posts to uploaded content, First Class Ticket status to serial key registration, Planet Auran has a place in handling many things.
But as Trainz grows, so does the demands on the technology we use. To bring you a richer user experience and provide more up to date services and tools, we need to first build a strong and solid foundation. Planet Auran has been great, but it wasn't designed solely for Trainz. Originally it encompassed all of Auran's products from the online store, to the D20 systems, as well as Trainz, but we're now at a point where its technical limitations are slowing growth. To this end, we'd like to introduce you to 'MyTrainz'.
MyTrainz will be our new account system going forward. Built specifically for the Trainz community, it will allow us to provide users with more services and greater tools to enrich the Trainz experience. At its very core, MyTrainz will handle the same roles as Planet Auran did - you won't need to create a new account. From this core, we'll be adding on further functionality as services are rolled out across the Trainz brand. Some of these will be behind the scenes, like changes to the DLS to improve download speeds or dependency checks. Others will be brand new functions to help you get the most out of Trainz, such as new ways to share and show off content, regular competitions, and promoting talented content creators.
Some of these updates will be down the track, not everything will be happening at once. But starting Monday the 20th October, you'll begin to see the roll over from Planet Auran to MyTrainz. During this time, some things might go wrong, services might drop for a few moments and you might experience brief interruptions. We'll work hard to keep these as minimal as possible, and we'd like to thank you in advance for your patience and understanding while we try to build you a better Trainz experience.
